


Warm Hands

by ashesandhoney



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Crooked Kingdom, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 09:10:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8199500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashesandhoney/pseuds/ashesandhoney
Summary: Inej comes home from a long sea voyage.





	

As the weather turned to autumn, Kaz got sharper. His plans were just a little more reckless, his mood just a little blacker, his temper just a little shorter. The Dregs gave him a wider berth when they heard the cane on the stairs. Reports were rehearsed so they were delivered as quickly as possible. Straws were drawn when bad news needed to be passed on and the loser always swore loudly when they saw it. 

Everyone knew why. 

No one said it. 

Jesper would have said it but Jesper didn't have to live at the Slat with him and his black cloud of a mood anymore. The rumours on that front flew thicker and faster than the rumours about the Wraith and Dirty Hands. Was he on a job? Was it a long con? Whatever it was, it meant Jesper wasn’t there to either temper or stir up Kaz’s mood and it was hard to say whether or not that was a blessing.

The day that Ketterdam woke to snow in mid October, Kaz was gone by sunrise. No one was sure when he came back but the next morning the snow was gone and his mood was worse as he stomped down the stairs. 

She was nearly a month late and if the winter winds were tearing through Ketterdam then they would be worse on the water. Kaz's fingers drummed on his desk, on his cane, on the door frame when he waited for someone to finish gathering their gear for some job. He hadn't been sleeping properly for weeks. He ran plans in  his head while staring out the window over the rooftops until the sky started to lighten again and had fallen asleep at the desk more than once. 

He was out on a three day job in the country when the little ship docked. His runner, the one he'd had sitting on the harbour for weeks now, had brought the news to the Slat but he wasn't there to receive it. He came home as caustic as he had been when he had left and the letter had been left on his desk so no one bothered to tell him to his face. There was no predicting how it would go when he was glaring like that. 

Kaz brushed the light snow off his hat and coat before he climbed the stairs. Winter was cold and the cold made his bad leg worse. He closed the door on his little room, grimacing at the pile of paper they'd left on his desk up here. It took only a second before the sense of not being alone washed over him. He adjusted his grip on the cane and turned slowly on the room. He was pretty sure that beating the hell out of someone would make him feel better at this point. He let his hand relax. 

She was curled on his bed. 

She was here. 

Inej. 

He crossed he room and leaned the cane against the wall as he looked down at her. She opened one eye and her lip curved in the hint of a smile. She had known he was coming as soon as he had set foot inside the building. Inej looked tired but her eyes were bright and alert and she had been well enough to climb up here without anyone in the Slat knowing she was there. It was enough to calm the worst of his anxiety. 

"You're late," he said. 

"Only because the weather is so lovely in Ravka this time of year," she said. 

He had questions but he didn't ask them. Had she stopped to visit her parents? To search for news of Nina? Had she followed some slaver there? There would be time for questions later. For stories and comparing notes and making new plans. All of it could wait. Kaz turned away from her and went to hang up his coat and his hat before returning to sit down on the edge of the bed in the space she had left him. He pulled off his gloves and pulled the tie loose. 

She sat with her feet crossed in the middle of the bed. Silent and still as she watched him with that near smile. A piece of her hair had escaped from her braid and she looked just the tiniest bit sleep rumpled. Softer than a Wraith. Softer than a pirate. She was a pirate now. He smiled at that thought and let it show on his face. Just a pretty girl woken from a nap. That was an illusion, Inej Ghafa would never be just anything. She would never be just a pirate or just a spider or just a girl. She would always be more than everyone expected, even him.  

"Will you be staying with the merchling again?"

She held his gaze a moment too long before shrugging off the question. They were within arms reach but it felt too far and too near all at once. She reached out across the distance first and dragged a feather light finger along his forearm where a slash wound had healed to shiny pink skin. His fingers twitched at the touch but he forced them to remain still as she traced the length of the injury. 

"Do you want to compare scars?" he asked. 

She laughed. "That would be a long conversation." 

Her hand spread out on his arm, palm against his skin. Warm. He pulled his gaze from where they touched and looked up at her face. She held his gaze and waited. Kaz lifted his other hand and covered hers with it, holding her hand against his skin. It had been months and he felt like he was starting over again, relearning how to tolerate skin on skin. 

He turned her hand over and held it between both of his, waiting for the waters to recede. Warm skin. Smooth over the backs of her fingers with callouses on her palms from ropes and rooftops and knives. He let a finger find her wrist and the heart beat below the skin there. She waited for him. Calm and serene and so alive. 

“It’s snowing again,” he said. 

“Just a dusting,” she said. 

“It will get worse.”

“Then it will melt again and Ketterdam will be as it has always been.”

Now their fingers were laced together. Palm to palm. His fingers were still against the back of her hand, no drumming energy. As the storm outside rolled in off the water, it might as well have been rolling off of him. His wraith was back. The ocean and the winds hadn’t been enough to stop her. One force of nature against another and of course Inej had been the one to win.

He leaned into the space between them and she came to meet him until his forehead settled against her hair. She still smelled of night air and just a little bit of a tang of salt.  She exhaled and he felt the warm air against his cheek. 

“You can stay here,” he said. 

“You gave away my room,” she said. 

“You weren’t using it,” he said. 

They’d bought up another house down the street, a smaller townhouse with just as many subdivided rooms because the Dregs were growing. Even with the second building, rooms that stood empty for six months at a time were a waste of space. Inej had taken her things with her. It was nothing but four walls and a pallet. Kaz had kept the space empty longer than he should have but had finally assigned it to a new recruit with a talent for pickpocketing. 

They sat in silence, hands entwined and faces so very close together. He raised his head and let his cheek drag along her hair. She made a noise that might have been a laugh but it was so quiet and he was too distracted to be sure. Now his lips were against her hair and he hadn’t been sure if he would be able to handle that. His heart beat had picked up but the waters didn’t rise with it. 

“When I said here, I meant here,” he said. 

She pulled back and regret beat through him but he met her eyes without a word. He would not take the invitation back but he knew what the answer would be. The answer would be no. He would be relieved when the answer was no. She tilted her head so that lose bit of hair fell against her cheek. 

She didn’t say a word. She slid soundlessly across the bed without letting go of his hand. She lay down above the blankets, still fully dressed and watched him. Their hands were a tether now, stretched between them. This was a very bad idea. Kaz lay down on his side and there was nearly enough space for another person in between them. The only point of contact was their knot of fingers, warm palm to warm palm. 

He reached out with his other hand pushed that stray bit of hair back from her face and then tried to settle against the mattress. The room was dim with the strange diffuse light of the setting sun through snow. It was not so dark that he couldn’t see the lines of her face and her narrow shoulders and way the sleeve covered her arm to the wrist. He moved his fingers on hers just to remind himself that it was all very real. 

It was impossible until it wasn’t. 

The Slat was loud below them but it might as well have been another world. They watched each other in silence for a long time before her eyes fell shut and her breathing changed. He pulled his hand back from hers and almost got up to go down to the office on the ground floor but there was still enough light for him to pick out the echo of her smile still on her lips. He didn’t get up. He tucked his hands in against his own body. Not touching. He couldn't touch her while she slept but he could watch that smile and listen to the near silent sound of her breath. 

Without meaning to, without his mind deciding to, his body drifted off as wel. For the first time in a very long time, he felt into a deep sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> There is a very small possibility that this will become an excruciating slow series of short fluff pieces like this leading up to an actual kiss but I have so many other stories going that it may just be a one shot forever.


End file.
